Articles

PC games that shaped Aliens: Colonial Marines

After lying dormant for quite some time, Aliens: Colonial Marines is finally making our motion trackers ping again. Developer Gearbox is drip feeding out new info, and is touting this as "the Aliens experience gamers have been waiting 25 years to play". The mighty PC has played host to a number of stop-gap pretenders over the years, each of them pregnant with untapped potential. We cast our eye back on these surrogate experiences to see which ideas popped like a chestbuster, and how they're shaping the upcoming bug-hunt.

Alien Trilogy

Alien Trilogy - Probe Entertainment - 1996 Even back in the day, Alien Trilogy wasn't solid enough to trick fans into thinking it was the state of the badass art. Slow, ugly, and oozing with anaemic gunplay; Trilogy was a curious amalgam of all three films that took the best parts of none of them. It was not a complete waste of time, however.

Did right: Who goes there?
Thanks to a limited depth of field, Trilogy captured the claustrophobic feel of the Hadley's Hope colony quite well. Granted, that effect was a byproduct of technical limitations just as much as it was conscious design decisions. Fast forward to today and it seems Gearbox is on track to recapture a similar sense of dread. ACM will use a heavily modified version of the Unreal 3 engine (a variant entitled Red Ring). Little is known of this in-house tech beyond the fact that the new rendering engine features dynamic, real-time lighting and shadowing.

Did okay: Xeno family reunion
Trilogy's enemies ran the whole gamut of the xenomorph life cycle, including: face-huggers, chest-bursters, warrior aliens, dog aliens and Queens. In terms of humanoid foes, you had to contend with employees of "The Company", who had either been infected, or were just trying to earn a bonus by right-sizing your ass. ACM will also offer the old types of xenos, plus a host of dangerous new variants (such as a virtually impervious rhino beast called The Crusher). The plot also suggests that Weyland Yutani is up to its meddling tricks, which means some of your own species will be out to screw you for a percentage, too.

Did wrong: Clunky enemies
This was released back before having polygonal enemies in an FPS was standard procedure. Understandably, Trilogy's pixelated, poorly animated xenonorphs didn't scare too many folks at all. That said, even with current technology Gearbox still has its work cut out trying to believably animate the chaotic, gravity-defying gait of Cameron's xenos. In 25 years it's yet to be nailed perfectly.

Aliens: Online

Aliens Online - Mythic Entertainment - 1998
As a massively multiplayer FPS, Aliens Online was something of a pioneer (that died ignominiously on the range somewhere). Players could choose to wield a pulse rifle as a member of the Colonial Marines, or stick to the shadows as one of H.R. Giger's iconic creations.

Did right: Comin' out of the goddamn walls
Nothing makes a gamer want to scream "Marines, we are LEAVING" like one hundred drones in a level – most AI, others controlled by underhanded humans. Worse still was the fear of being shame-killed by any player who had commandeered the face-hugger "joke character" variant. Being hopelessly outnumbered, and stuck in what Pvt. Hudson might call "some real pretty shit", is core to the whole Aliens experience. ACM appears to be capturing this well, as Gearbox will be shifting the pace from gung-ho bug hunts, to wave-based defences behind sentry turrets, and even some slower exploratory sections.

Did okay: It's readin' right, man, look
The motion tracker in Aliens Online had to be equipped like a weapon, and was not integrated into the HUD itself. Much like Doom 3, you had a gun, or a means to see what was coming: not both. ACM takes the very same approach and only time will tell if this switch-fest will help or hinder the experience.

Did wrong: Camera check, we can't see a thing
In Aliens Online, members of a fire-team could open miniature "helmet cam" windows to view feeds of their comrades dying horribly. On paper that sounds like a great idea, but not when you saw how crummy and restrictive your own "picture-in-picture" view was. In comparison, Gearbox is striving to keep ACM as HUD-less as possible, but it has hinted that the helmet cam system will be used in cinematic ways.

Aliens versus Predator

Aliens Versus Predator - Rebellion - 1999
This was the first FPS to drop all three deadly species into the one meat grinder. AVP was big on action, great for multiplayer skirmishes, but noticeably bereft of plot. In retrospect it wasn't quite worthy of the title "classic", but we do have many, many fond memories of it.

Did right: An ultimate badass you ain't
Playing as the AVP Marine never felt empowering. Even though you had self-tracking SmartGuns, rocket launchers and a mini-gun -- but no sonic electronic ball-breakers, or sharp sticks -- you never felt safe. All that tech turned out to be about as effective as harsh language, because you were frail at close range, and your missions were solo affairs. Likewise, ACM's single-player campaign will regularly separate you from the armada of marines you arrive with. Mind you, it has a four-player co-op option, so you need never die alone.

Did okay: Authentic aural action
Though most gamers probably never thought to insert AVP's second CD, it rewarded those who did with awesome music. An expanded version of James Horner's soundtrack for the movie Aliens was featured along with several unreleased pieces and extended versions of tracks. It's worth noting that the music in the ACM E3 demo we saw didn't feel particularly dynamic, thanks to a few ham-fisted shifts between action set-pieces.

Did wrong: Game over, man, game over
This standard version of AVP had long, difficult missions with no mid-mission saves. After intense player pressure, Fox eventually added checkpointing in a patch. Gearbox's Randy Pitchford is being quite mysterious as to how checkpoints are handled and how co-op players will be reinserted into the action once death occurs. According to him the mechanic will "make more sense when you see it for yourself". Curious.

Aliens versus Predator 2

Aliens vs. Predator 2 - Monolith Productions - 2001
This was one heck of a good follow up to AVP and the Lithtech Talon Engine it ran on surprised a lot of people (we remember being particularly impressed with its use of polygonal eyelids). Unlike its plot-less predecessor, each of the three protagonists in AVP2 had a story that wove into one larger interspecies shindig. The tasteful kind.

Did right: Om nom nom
AVP2 broke new ground in gore by including an interactive chest-burster scene where you literally chewed though somebody's ribcage to start your life. If that isn't unnerving enough, your next goal in life was to make it past human security in order to eat a cat trapped in a nearby pet carrier. Gearbox hasn't revealed any such scenes of PETA-incensing chest-rape, but we did spot a fair share of gore, including arterial sprays from marines yanked into vents, and our player character also got his head bitten off by a queen in the first-person.

Did okay: Hudson, run a bypass
In AVP2's single player mode, your marine protagonist, Harrison, is a technician who can handle a welding torch and a ComTech Hacking Device to circumvent security. These skills were obviously a key tactic of the marines in the second act of James Cameron's Aliens. ACM shows evidence of AI marines using their welders to fortify positions in the defensive sections, however their hasty seal job meant nothing in the face of The Crusher.

Did wrong: We have a Class 2 rating you know
To its credit AVP2 featured a heavily armoured battle suit that was bristling with weapons. But what we really wanted was the chance to get resourceful and weaponize the iconic, purely utilitarian powerloaders seen in the Sulaco's cargo bay. We couldn't tell you if such a chance comes along in ACM. What we can say is that we witnessed an AI comrade suit up into one, only to be ripped out (and dismembered) by a rampaging Queen. Looks like Ripley got lucky.

Aliens versus Predator - 2010

Aliens vs. Predator - Rebellion - 2010
With the 2010 AVP, Rebellion returned to take the franchise back to the drawing board, and wound up ruining their original equation quite a bit. AVP was short, unsatisfying and full of half-baked ideas. Many said it was like playing a tie-in of the AVP movies -- which is quite the insult.

Did right: Awesome cameos
The best parts of a spiritual successor come from the head nods made to the source material. AVP took a step in the right direction by featuring the likeness and dulcet tones of Lance Hendrickson (aka Bishop). According to Gearbox, ACM will be jam-packed with similar nerdgasm moments. Word on the street is we'll get to ride in Ripley's escape dropship, walk through Bishop's milky leavings in the cargo bay, and even find the rest of Newt's doll. Pitchford has also hinted that we'll pass the place of Vasquez and Gorman's martyrdom, and discover what really happened to both Burke and Hudson.

Did okay: Cease fire!
AVP had a feature in its multiplayer mode which mimicked the panicked, friendly fire kills seen in the Aliens movie. If a Marine is killed in multiplayer while holding down the trigger, his corpse will continue to fire the remaining rounds in their weapon (much like that old action movie cliché). Obviously this was less than ideal if you were travelling with buddies in an enclosed environment with your hands on a flamethrower. Gearbox has confirmed adversarial multiplayer, but is staying silent about its finer details.

Did wrong: You're dog meat, pal
AVP introduced a melee system that let your marine turn aside a xenomorph melee attack. Ludicrous. We don't care if the corps taught you some sweet hand-to-hand; if one of Giger's creations gets within acid spraying distance it should be adios, muchacho. Unfortunately, ACM seems to be taking the same route thanks to quick-time "near miss" events. Color us very unenthusiastic.

Spy Guy says: Will this really be the blockbuster Aliens game I've been waiting a quarter of a century to play? Will this be a stand-up fight, sir, or another "bugged hunt" that only dispenses fun in short, controlled bursts? Do you think Gearbox has what it takes to deliver the perfect Aliens experience? Sound off in the comments, soldiers!